Attending
- Russ Hobby
- Diane Lewis
- Curtis White
- Chet Ruszczyk
- Alan Whitney
- Bob Bradford
- Greg Palmer
- Heidi Alvarez
- Julio Ibarra
- Arun Venkataraman
- Heather Boyles
- and Warren Matthews.
CIARA's Caribbean Effort
Heidi reported that she and Julio had visited Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands and met with the Universities. They had discussed bandwidth and applications. In particular, the connection to the Arecibo Observatory is in need of more bandwidth especially because of the involvement with eVLBI. The issue is not resolved, but it is being worked on. The USVI received its first round of funding to build infrastructure between the universities in St Thomas and St Croix. The next round is probably next summer for funding to start in 2008. The team are working to get them connected sooner. There are some possibilities about better connectivity from P.R. to the U.S.. The USVI Universities will be happy with DS3. Curtis added that there has been a series of meetings with the licensing authority responsible for the St. Croix cable. It will probably connect to the AT&T site. The issue is not resolved but it is expected that the application will be filed before the end of the year and it will be out from the FCC in March/April depending on any opposition. Furthermore, cables are not laid during hurricane season so this means the project will not be complete until the 4th quarter of 2007. The project will also add legs to St Kitts and Antigua. No decision has yet been made on extending to Trinidad and Tobago. Heidi commented that in a year from now there will be other options. Alan asked who was the contact at Arecibo. Arun responded that it was Dr Mike Nolan. Alan reported there was a meeting last week at Haystack involving the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. Alan is working on a plan to connect U.S. telescopes (including Arecibo). The plan should be available in the next month or so and will be widely distributed. Alan hopes it will spark more discussion and garner support. Heidi reiterated the need for more bandwidth for Arecibo and Alan agreed the current ~20 Mbps is only marginally useful. Heidi asked if the report would be submitted to NSF. Alan responded that it would be only in so much as to provide support for applications to NSF. Alan will send updates as things proceed. Arun followed up and commented that NRAOs VLBA needs bandwidth upgrades but they do not have the funds for it. The VLBA includes an antenna in St Croix which needs to be considered jointly with Arecibo for networking upgrades. The situation with funding was confirmed on the mailing list by Guy Cormier. See the mailing list archives for additional useful information from Guy regarding Internet2 connectivity in PR.
Funding
This is an open issue.
Erasmus MC/St Maarten Hospital "click to meet" application
Heidi reported the application is ready to use. The connection to Erasmus is undergoing testing. There was a back-and-forth between Heidi and Curtis that indicated the hospital may be confused about some aspects of the application. Heidi confirmed it is written and tested. Curtis said there was some concern that a European project would meet the needs of the hospital, however the Dr in Holland is from St Maarten! Curtis mentioned two islands in the Dutch Antilles will no longer be part of the Dutch Kingdom in July 2007. He also mentioned he is trying to arrange a meeting with the Caribbean Knowledge Learning Network (CKLN) at the ministerial level. There haven't been any as far as he knows but it would be good to dove tail the efforts. He did mention Dr Thomson has been in contact with CLARA. Curtis followed up after the call with details on how much money the EU are contributing and what it is earmarked for. It is 2 million euros toward the establishment of the CKLN. See http://www.ckln.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=67&Itemid=2 for details.
Cuba
Curtis will return to Cuba next week. There is a push from the highest levels of government to complete a 2 Mbps connection. Curtis will meet with at least 3 hospitals that will be involved with the Teleheath interface to Internet2. Curtis hopes to get philosophical clearance while he is on the ground. The connection will be across Qwest, SmitCom and Sat Mex providing the satellite connection to Cuba. There are no cables in Cuba. The connection should be complete by the end of the year. Heather asked if this would be 2 Mbps to an institution or for the whole country. Curtis responded it is to the country. FCC approval would be needed for more. The hospital will probably have a 512 kbps connection. The Cuban infrastructure has a ceiling for all providers in the world which means anything above 2 Mpbs would result in getting kicked off (just like it would for anyone else).
St Maarten as a hub
Most of the progress here has been covered already.
Other comments
Warren asked who will be at the Internet2 members meeting. Only Chet is brave enough to face Chicago in December. Warren will follow up with Chet about including a segment on the Caribbean at the SIG meeting. Curtis made a special point of announcing he will be in the Caribbean, albeit working hard.
We will plan on another call in January or February.